28 February 2006 5:14 PM

I'm fast coming to the conclusion that nobody actually works at Talk Talk and this is the UK's first fully-automated humanity-free computer-run company.

Since signing up for its landline phone service on January 3 I have yet to receive a bill. Yet they have now taken £29.50 from my current account as a first payment without so much as a by your leave.

I've tried phoning them but after wading my way through their electronic menu I finally reach a message which says: 'All our operators are busy now please call back later.' They then hang up on me. These operators have been busy for the past week.

Doesn't any of them ever get off the phone? Perhaps they're all on extended lunch breaks?

I've tried emailing but all I get are automated responses. I emailed on February 22. They replied: 'Due to increased volumes we are currently experiencing delays in responding to e-mail. We will make every effort to answer your e-mail as quickly as possible.'

They might be open, but what's the point of opening if nobody ever answers the ruddy phone?

They even have the cheek to tag on the following message: 'We are pleased to announce that we now offer line rental and calls on one, easy to understand bill. In order to receive the benefits of these improved services, or for more information, you are invited to call our Contact Centre on 0870 444 1820. Please quote reference TTLR when calling.'

That's precisely what I'm trying to call about. I want a bill. Any bill will do. Just something that tells me how much they are going to take from my bank account before they actually take it.

I've finally done it. Although everyone else I know seems to switch energy suppliers more readily than their socks, I've never been keen on the idea. In the past, the savings didn't seem worthwhile and given my hatred of filling in forms (and indeed finding the necessary old bills needed) was just too much hassle.

But the recent massive increases announced by British Gas and today, Powergen, have forced my hand. I've just gone through the simply switch website (I could have chosen uswitch which offers a similar service) and by moving from British Gas and London Energy to Atlantic I should save nearly £200 a year. Naturally, I expect it all to go horribly wrong - for example, what happens about the British Gas warranty on our recently purchased and highly expensive boiler? - but how can you ignore a £200 saving? Am I worrying unnecessarily?

So the Royal Bank of Scotland made £8.2bn last year. Punching a few numbers into my calculator reveals the following staggering stats. £8.2bn a year is nearly £1m profit every hour, or £260 every second. However you look at it, that's an awful lot of money.

But most concerning to me was news that the cost of writing off bad consumer debts was up 30% to £1.17bn, or £133,500 an hour, or £37 a second. In reality, what that means is that there are thousands of people out there who cannot pay off the money they owe to the bank - be it a personal loan, mortgage, overdraft or credit card bill.

£1.17bn is ONLY the money that people like you and I CANNOT PAY BACK to the bank, rather than the total amount loaned to consumers. And that's just at two banks: for Royal Bank of Scotland and the other bank it owns, NatWest. RBS and NatWest ought to be be ashamed and I hope they are getting the message that not everyone can afford a loan/card/overdraft.

But all banks need to start taking responsibility for our snowballing consumer debt. This is Money receives desperate emails every day from readers who are struggling to cope with their personal debts. It might be a spiralling overdraft that the bank continues to increase and to earn ridiculous rates of interest from, or a mortgage that they cannot afford to repay or credit card bills that continue to pile up - or, more likely, a mixture of all three.

Don't get caught in this trap. If you are offered 'pre-approved credit' from your bank, think very carefully about whether you need it. Avoid credit cards where possible if you don't trust yourself with them. And if you do need credit, choose a 0% card and a realistic limit, rather than evil store cards that can charge you up to 30% interest. The links below will help you sort out your finances and reduce your debts.

27 February 2006 5:35 PM

I decided that I needed to swap bank accounts and since Barclays had a good deal I opted for them.

It was all going so swimmingly. I had filled in the form online and answered all the basic questions, but then came the security questions.

Now, you expect to be checked up through Experian or Equifax whenever you buy anything financial these days. But I had never come across the bizarre multiple questions that Barclays had. They went something like this:

Question 1: You took out a credit or debit card in 1989. Who was it for?

Question 3: What is the current credit limit on a card you have with Financial Ltd?

a) £500 b) £3000 c) £3100 d) £3500

Like every multiple choice test I did at school one answer was obviously wrong, but it could have easily been any of the others.

And like every multiple choice I did at school, I didn't know the answer so opted for option C every time.

Predictably, I failed the test and was refused for an account. The reason why? Barclays says that the answers I presented did not match the ones on my record. Well, what a surprise!

I mean, seriously, is it just me or does anyone actually know precise what the balances on their cards are to the day and what card they took out 17 years ago? Is it not enough that every transaction we make these days is tracked that all of a sudden they want your complete financial CV?

25 February 2006 9:42 AM

Nationwide, my mortgage lender, has generally been good to me. The UK's largest building society, however, has joined the growing band of lenders charging borrowers 'exit fees'.

What's worse is that when we moved house and remortgaged with Nationwide six months ago, they tried to charge us a £90 exit fee for moving from one Nationwide mortgage to another Nationwide mortgage. When I pointed out to my branch that this was a mite unfair, they agreed - and today we finally received the money back from our solicitor.

The point of this tip? ...always contest fees (especially mortgage exit fees) as you quite often don't have to pay. My case was pretty clear cut but we know of other less straight forward examples where lenders have returned the money.

24 February 2006 6:44 PM

Is anyone out there desperate, like me, to take a sledgehammer to high street banks' latest fad - automated cheque paying in machines?

These slabs of high-tech junk are propping up walls in branches all over the country. They're supposed to accept cheques and print out a personalised receipt. Fantastic.

Except they don't work. The only time I ever saw one work was when it was demonstrated to me by the radiantly proud chief exective of Alliance & Leicester, Richard Pym. He'd just bought some of them.

The fact it worked for him on that one occasion I put down to a miracle.

All my subsequent my encouters have been disastrous. The machines swallow the cheques greedily enough. But then, while you stand waiting with mounting alarm listening to all the clicking and whirring, they seem to change their mind. Eventually the cheque pops out again, nibbled at the edges.

After a particularly annoying session in HSBC last week I went to the counter and complained. The woman said: 'Don't tell me about it, it's already broken four times today. You hate them, we hate them, none of them work.'

23 February 2006 11:06 AM

I've just spent a week skiing in France and have been charged a whopping £17.17 in fees for withdrawing my money from my NatWest current account. I used my card for some fairly big purchases - a weekly lift pass, a week's ski and boot hire, a pair new of sunglasses (the other ones broke when I stacked in spectacular fashion on an icy red run) as well as some cash. But £17?????

Enough! I've switched from NatWest to Nationwide, with its outstanding current account and lack of fees. Last week I spent five minutes on the Nationwide website filling out the online application form. A letter popped through my door yesterday telling me I'd been approved, with a form authorising Nationwide to switch all my direct debits from NatWest and a letter for my employer to change my salary details.

It couldn't be easier. I don't often sing the praises of banks or building societies but this Nationwide current account will pay 4.25%, their overdraft rate is a competitive 7.75% and the won't charge me for using overseas ATMs. I think it's a great deal. Let me know if you agree by posting a comment below.

22 February 2006 4:38 PM

It's a grim day for credit card rate tarts – HSBC has withdrawn the only remaining card that offered nine months 0% interest without a fee from the shelves and replaced it a six months offer.

Whilst this is only a three month drop it is a further nail in the coffin for fee-free balance transfers. This time last year, punters were able to get over a year's worth of interest free balance transfers without paying for it. Although, it is still possible to get 12 month deals, you now have to pay up to £50 for the privilege.

The credit card gravy is grinding to a halt and all those with thousands of pounds of debt on their cards will either have to get used to paying each time they switch or take advantage of one of the many life of balance transfer deals hitting the market. Either way, the days of free credit will soon be at an end.

I'll always remember the time my daughter switched off Teletubbies, turned and asked: 'Dad. What's a pension?' And so I told her. And she said: ' Wow! That's amazing. Can I have a Stakeholder for Christmas? And a talking Laa-Laa.'

You see, pensions are not complicated beasts. They're just big savings accounts that you start dipping into when you can't be bothered to go to work any more.

The nice part is that the money you save is free of tax, in other words you get FREE MONEY from the Government. And if you have a company pension, your employer will also put cash into the account for you: more FREE MONEY.

The system is deliberately made complicated by the people in the pensions industry who try to cream off as much of your money as they can in the form of commissions and blackholes by using impenetrable jargon such as blackholes. In fact they're just trying to get their own back for not having any friends at school.

But for anyone who still feels bamboozled or bored by the subject there's only one thing you need to know - the sooner you start saving the more money you'll have to spend on fun stuff when the appeal of going to work starts to wane and you have more time to spend your money.

And for you people, there's some good news on the way.

In about six week's time there is going to be a pensions revolution - when the system gets even simpler than it already is.

Of course This is Money will keep you up-to-date with all the developments but in the meantime you may want to sign up for our newsletter and newsflash to follow all the changes or visit some of the useful links below.

21 February 2006 1:49 PM

Last week This is Money and Money Mail each wrote a story on PayPal and the response has been so overwhelming that we've had to start up an entire new forum on our message boards just to handle our readers' PayPal rage.

I've only ever bought something off eBay once, using PayPal, and the whole thing went very smoothly. But after reading about the frustrations many of you have with the payment service, I'm starting to think that I was very lucky. Many of our readers' gripes relate to eBay's complaints resolution process, the 'standard response' emails, the inability to get someone, somewhere, to sort things out. But most of all, people have lost their hard-earned money by selling something on a site in which they should have complete faith.

If you're going to run a business purely on the internet it's imperative that you provide a decent way for customers to contact you if there's a problem. Nowhere on the eBay website is there a phone number for people who have been duped by dodgy buyers or sellers.

Thanks to all your replies, I'd seriously think twice before selling anything on eBay now, despite the fact that everything went very smoothly for me. I don't know whether the fundamental problems with eBay are specific to that particular site or a product of the new online age, where you can buy and sell things 'virtually' without ever seeing the buyer/seller/product, but I'd be interested to hear what you all thing. You can let us know by posting a comment below.